Tuesday, 27 August 2013

Whether you want to test out a new ROM for daily use or just keep an eye
on one that's being developed, you can run multiple ROMs on your rooted
Android phone with BootManager, and pick which one to use when you
start it up.

Having multiple ROMs to choose from is great, but flashing and
re-flashing new ROMs just to try them out is annoying. If you want to
try one out but don't want to fully flash it over your current ROM,
BootManager will let you flash it (and up to three others) to your SD
card, so you can try multiple ROMs at once. The ROMs you run from your
SD card won't be quite as fast, and not every ROM out there will work,
but it should give you a chance to try out most other ROMs without fully
flashing them.

Note: This tutorial contains some pretty advanced stuff, and we don't
recommend it if you're unfamiliar with rooting and flashing ROMs. If
you're just starting out, check out how to root your Android phone and
how to flash Android ROMs before moving onto something like this.
Step One: Flash a Second ROM

Before you do anything, make a nandroid backup of your current ROM with
ROM Manager or through your recovery module. If anything goes wrong, you
can always restore from this backup to get things back to the way they
were.

To set up BootManager, just download and install it from the Market, and
start it up. You'll also want to grab a ROM of your choice and save the
zip file on your SD card.

When you first start up BootManager, it'll prompt you to back up your
boot.img, which you should do before installing any ROMs. Once you've
done that, head to "Install ROMs". Pick the zip file from your SD card
containing the ROM you want to flash, and check all three boxes: Wipe
System, Wipe Data, and Wipe Cache. Let it do its thing (which will take
awhile). When you're done, it will give you the option of booting into
your new ROM. Hit Done; we aren't ready to boot into it just yet.

Step Two: Install Google Apps and Other ROM Add-Ons

Most ROMs don't come with Google's copyrighted apps, like Gmail, the
Market, and others. This is a problem, since when you boot into your new
ROM you need BootManager to function if you ever want to boot out of
it, and it won't work unless you're signed into the Android Market.
Luckily, there's an easy fix (note: if you know your ROM comes with
Google Apps installed, you can skip this step).

Download the Google Apps zip file for the ROM you just installed and go
back to BootManager. Hit Install ROMs. This time, pick Google Apps' zip
file, and use the same slot that you used in step one. Leave all three
"wipe" boxes unchecked this time. When it's done, booting into that slot
will take you to the original ROM, but with the Google apps installed.

If you want to install a theme or other zip-based mod in the future, you
can do that using this method too. Just remember: if you're flashing a
new ROM, check all three "wipe" boxes, but if you're just installing an
add-on to a ROM, don't check any of them.

Step Three: Switch Between ROMs

To boot into one of your other ROMs, just head into BootManager and
choose "Boot Installed ROM". It'll show you a list of ROMs you have
installed on your device, and after choosing one of them it will reboot
into that ROM. BootManager will come installed on each of your other
ROMs as well, and as long as you're signed into the Android Market on
that ROM, you can boot into it from there as well and switch back to
your main ROM.

That's it! You can flash up to five ROMs at a time, so you'll never be
bored by one measly operating system. Hit the link to download
BootManager.

BootManager is a $2.99 download for Android 2.1 and up. See the Google Play page below for officially supported devices.